Commentary on popular culture and society, from a (mostly) psychological perspective

Monday, February 11, 2008

Finding Freedom in an Unfree World?

Well, it's the start of tax time again and as a small business owner, it's often a time that gets me more than a bit cranky. I remember a point made long ago by libertarian Harry Browne--that we often (some of us) work until July 27th of the year for the government and the rest of the year for ourselves. Browne asks a good question about the state of our economic life, "If this is freedom, at what level of confiscation are we no longer free?"

At times, I think we are approaching it and I imagine that, depending on the upcoming election, it will only get worse. In 1995, when Brown wrote his book Why Government Doesn't Work, he stated that if we continue down the path of large government programs, the government will no longer be able to keep its promises--leaving only two choices:

1) The repudiation of promises made to Social Security recipients and others who have become dependent on the government; or

2) Tax rates of 50%, 60%, 70% or more to pay for all the IOUs the government has signed on your behalf.

Over 12 years have passed since Browne said these words and it seems that they were prophetic in a sense. The age for full Social Security benefits has been raised to 67 for those of us born after 1960 and the current crop of Democratic candidates is mentioning even more of a tax burden to pay for ever more expanding programs. Are any of us free anymore and the more important question to me is, does anybody care? I do.

The book might interest those of you with libertarian leanings (I consider myself a bit of a Heinleinian libertarian/independent and all around curmudgeon). Browne plays a pseudo-psychologist in the first part of the book --explaining that our attempts at freedom often depend upon our ability to change the minds of other people--and so optimism ultimately turns into frustration and despair (been there, done that, check).

In the chapters that follow, he covers freedom from social restrictions, family problems, high taxes, bad relationships, the treadmill and government repression. Some of the ideas are good: "negative emotions can act as signals to you, letting you know that there's an uncomfortable part of your life that needs attention," some are bad: "I don't believe that you do anything for your country by fighting in a war (any war), giving up your money, or sacrificing in any way" and some are just downright kooky with a section on using illegal methods to break laws. "If you want to start a new business, don't go looking for all the licenses and regulations you are supposed to observe, just operate." Uh, okay.

Anyway, the book is an interesting read, especially for the personal information, but I'm not sure about all of the advice, sounds like one might just end up in a much less free place: jail.

80 Comments:

The US government likes to think in terms of "freedom". The government used the idea of "freedom" or the now famous line, "freedom isn't free", to convince its citizens that a war in Iraq was a good idea, even though there was no concrete evidence at the time that Iraq was a threat, and it worked like a charm.

The government uses the idea of protecting our so called freedoms to increase oversight, intrude on our lives and privacy and spend more of our money. And the result is $9.25 trillion dollars of debt, $30K for each one of us. In reality, we aren't free, not by a long shot. We are videotaped, prodded at the airport, asked for ID at the bar, go to a retail store and they try to ask for your phone number. The government is very aware of every move you make.

The government has us all by the short hairs hook, line and sinker. The government knows we like to drive cars, so they tax the gas, make us buy titles, registrations and licenses. Cars become a profit center. The government knows we like to own property, so we all get pay thousands of dollars of property taxes, water taxes, school taxes and other creative taxes. The government knows we like to have jobs so the result are income taxes. Alcohol? Taxes. Cigarettes? Taxes. Some counties even have restaurant taxes! Go on a vacation? Hotel tax.

However, the government does bother taxing everything. If you want to ride your bike, that's pretty much free. Swim in a lake? If it is not some sort of park, free. Climb a mountain? free. Rock Climbing? free. Cooking fresh food, meat, vegetables, fruits? free. Singing? free. Digital photography? free. Internet? Free wifi hotspots. If you don't like property taxes live in a smaller house.

The trick is to find out what the government won't tax, won't charge for, won't oversee and can't micromanage, and do those things. Otherwise, they will just suck more and more out of you. You are the limitless money well to the US government, be it the Republicans or the Democrats.

Don't worry about Social Security.Once we pull in our 24million undocumented taxees and open the border to Mexico things will even out-- or why else would a "conservative" want to allow illegal immigration. (it saves social security!) Follow the money.

Um, not exactly. Even if you are here illegally and even if you are using someone else's ID and social security number, if you can prove you paid into social security you can apply for benefits when you "retire", regardless of who you are and where you are from.

When we have financial problems, just think about the $333 million dollars a day that is being spent in Iraq, everyday, 365 days a year and ongoing. You can blame illegal aliens or who ever you want, but just imagine that $333 million dollars a day going into preserving Social Security.

On the subject of psychology, I wonder what Dr. Helen has to say about the NYU, UCLA study that suggests an innate genetic predisposition to liberalism and conservatism and tendencies in the way they process information.

The study published in the Journal Nature Neuroscience shows liberals have a greater cognitive ability to problem solve and cope with changing conditions than conservatives who are more "persistent and structured" and are more reliant on "habitual responses." From the study:

William - If you searched DrHelen's blog you would already know what she thinks about those studies. But in your conceited, lazy habitual response pattern of most liberals you prefer to act superior and condescending rather than expend any effort.

I saw where she commented on the study funded by the US Government's National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health that concluded conservatism can be explained psychologically as: a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

And I saw the other regarding politics on the development of kids, but nothing on this recent study. Sorry, I guess I missed it.

I think these conclusions seem fairly logical and accurate. Social science reflects tendencies and is never absolute, however this study seems to suggest a correlation between political ideology and neurological function, and even genetic disposition. I find it rather fascinating. I guess you don't.

The truly sad thing about Social Security, look what happened when George Bush rolled out a plan to introduce just a little bit of freedom and start chipping away at the burden: he was practically crucified -- by his own party; by everybody.

"When we have financial problems, just think about the $333 million dollars a day that is being spent in Iraq, everyday, 365 days a year and ongoing. You can blame illegal aliens or who ever you want, but just imagine that $333 million dollars a day going into preserving Social Security."----------------Well William, your input is valuable, but I'm afraid $1.2 trillion /= to more than 30 trillion in future social security and medicaid liabilities. I would also be interested to know the source of the figures you present.----------------"The study published in the Journal Nature Neuroscience shows liberals have a greater cognitive ability to problem solve and cope with changing conditions than conservatives who are more "persistent and structured" and are more reliant on "habitual responses."-----------------Does this study also discuss tendencies to launch into irrelevant segues?-----------------"Liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern."

Essentially, conservatives tend to rely on ‘persistence’ in a ‘habitual response pattern,’ despite signals that this response pattern should change... (i.e. "stay the course")

From what I've seen, this study nails it."-----------------What a thoroughly instructive non-sequitur! Are you suggesting that more conservative types might be averse to change, and liberals more open to it? By GOD! This is both new and exciting! May I subscribe to your newsletter?

Seriously, however rigorous that purported study may be, we can be reasonably assured that it uses fairly orthodox (in American popular culture) definitions of liberalism or conservatism. Unfortunately for the study's authours, whatever merits American so-called liberalism may have, it would be difficult to substantiate the claim that so-called liberals have had a new idea in the last 40 years. So, where is this openness to new ideas, problem-solving and all the rest?

I think William is implying that people who are skeptical of change ,or creatures of habit, are somehow less human than those who embrace change...no matter what that change may be.

The Left seems to me to stay away from biological determinism, actually, the occasional reflexive exception to the rule notwithstanding.

I think they prefer nurture over nature, in totality, to the pt where they often get silly about it. I suspect it's cuz "all differences are just nurture" is a control freak's dream, and the narcissist's who anoint themselves the leaders of the Left are definitely control freaks. And if all is nurture, then their goal of total control is still achievable, Dare to dream!

Brave New World, for ex, never advocated drugs to control people's beliefs, or DNA manipulation, or lobotomies etc ... just education and propaganda and ... well, nurture ad absurdum. What Huxley intended as baleful irony some people took as an instruction manual.

Think: where have increased freedoms come from in the last say 50 years? Other from some dubious social legislation promoting stuff like previously-tabu sterile marriages, the vast increases in freedoms have been economic, and largely spring from improvements in technology.

Think again: what has caused the greatest loss of personal freedoms in the last 50 years? From political forbidding and denying activities.

For starters, you can't smoke, drive without seatbelts, contribute as you wish to political activities, speak your mind on college campuses, hire and fire at will, replace an old building you own, choose plastic bags when they're best for your purposes, or sell an acre of your south 40 to a willing buyer.

Heinleinian libertarian, eh? I am going to assume without the consequence free views on free sex (see Time Enough for Love especially, in addition to Stranger In A Strange Land). Of course Heinlein also said/wrote that when society starts requiring ID, it's time to leave.

That study about liberals and conservatives would be great if, you know, those terms actually meant anything anymore.

Liberals today are economic authoritarians, who try to use the power of government to freeze things as they are. (Would this make them economic conservatives?) Worse, liberals aren't even socially liberal, save for a few key issues like abortion. A sixteen year old girl can choose to get an abortion, but if the same girl tries to go to a tanning booth or buy a violent video game? Oooh no, it offends the sensibilities of so-called liberals.

Conservatives range from old-style social conservatives who favor economic freedom to socially moderate economic authoritarians. Just look at the various "conservative" philosophies that were on display in the Republican race at the beginning of the year.

Then you have large swaths of people who don't fit either ideology: libertarians, anarchists, communists, fascists, "purple state" moderates who pick and choose issues. They're not liberal or conservative.

How did the study determine political affiliation? Self-reporting? Party registration? Litmus tests?

Honestly, I have a really hard time believing that this study proves anything. Modern liberalism and conservatism are logically incoherent hodgepodge philosophies.

On second thought, it's impossible to find a political philosophy that's purely conservative. Modern conservatism features a reliance on free markets, which are liberal. Fascism and communism, while both authoritarian, both seek to radically reshape society. (And, no, authoritarianism and conservatism ain't the same thing.)

If you've ready the study, I'd love to know how the political scientists involved handled these problems, or whether they've just charged ahead with deeply flawed and incoherent assumptions. My guess is that it's the latter, but I'm too cheap to spend the $30 on the full text of the study.

Confiscation by taxation, in and of itself, is politically ambiguous. At least, it is if you accept that there's any such thing as ethically defensible taxation.

I would locate the point at which we are no longer free at the moment when the State, through its constitutional organ, declares that a private person's income is only his to keep because of "legislative grace" -- and I believe the Supreme Court said that in 1935, though Professor Reynolds should check me on that. The recent Kelo decision epoxied the lid onto the coffin by extending that principle to real property.

"Power wins, not by being used, but by being there." -- Joseph Schumpeter

Raising the retirement age fixes the entire social security ``problem,'' which is merely a demographic problem as lifetimes get longer.

Think of it as getting benefits for the last 10 years of your life, not as working until some fixed age like 67.

As lifetimes go up, so does the retirement age.

How much does it go up? Enough so that there's enough workers supporting each retiree. But raising the age does solve the problem completely.

If you want to retire sooner, fine, but you do it on your own dime to bridge the gap until the benefits age.

Incidentally the benefit is an inflation adjusted annuity, that insures you against outliving your income. It works like most insurance, by mostly paying less than it costs, and occasionally paying back much more than it costs.

Privatizing it wouldn't help. There has to be enough workers supporting each retiree whether it's done privately or not. If you fund it privately, then you have too many people buying stocks today and selling at once at retirement, reducing the return on investment until the retirement age in fact goes up to the same level, so that there are fewer retiring and more working.

think about the $333 million dollars a day that is being spent in Iraq, everyday... just imagine that $333 million dollars a day going into preserving Social Security.

That $333 mil is supporting the reformation of the Middle East, with Iraq as the model. Its the only long-term solution to marginalizing radical Islam. The threat to America is 1) proliferation of WMDs 2) by rogue nation states 3) that sponsor anonymous terrorist attacks against the West. Of that triad, #2 is the easiest leg to kick out, giving us time & space to slow WMD proliferation and castrate the radicals.

Claiming that the redirection of those sums for SS would be a better investment is like replacing all the water-damaged carpet and furniture in your house... before you fix the hole in your roof.

A robust SS system is useless if the West Coast is radiated and New England is turned into a valley of glass.

William - If you used deduction, you could predict rather accurately how DrHelen would respond to those studies even if she hadn't alread commented on those particular studies.

Instead you resort to the "habitual response pattern" of liberals - somehow implying that conservatives, and others who don't think like you, are somehow mentally, psychologically or emotionally inferior to liberals. Of course, this is much easier than actually having to think and reason.

Well, the fact that liberals constantly need to remind themselves they are "smarter" than us says it all.

I once worked with a girl in college who admitted to chosing the Liberal Brand solely because some study claimed liberals had more advanced degrees and were therefore "smarter". But she couldn't see that a major in Basket Weaving needed an advanced degree to compete in the real world against those with a degree in Economics or Science.

In addition, since you are such a fan of the differences between Repubs and Democrats and accept those differences at face value, perhaps you will be interested in this one that shows Democrats rate their own mental health as much lower than Republicans:

Should we therefore conclude that Democrats are nuts? No, I imagine something very different is going on. However, the point is that these studies and polls are often misleading--you cannot assume they are only correct when they give you the data you want to hear.

The government used the idea of "freedom" or the now famous line, "freedom isn't free", to convince its citizens that a war in Iraq was a good idea, even though there was no concrete evidence at the time that Iraq was a threat,

Huh? Did you read the AUMF? The reasons for removing Hussein ranged from his massacre of the Kurds with WMD to the invasion of Kuwait to its open support of various international terrorist groups to its police-state domestic terrorism.

That's before we even get to the 12 years of shooting at our soldiers, violating the terms of the cease-fire, and failing to cooperate with the UN inspectors.

And no, freedom isn't free, and the price in Iraq was dear. But 25 million Iraqis have a hell of a lot more freedom (voting, free press, freedom of expression to name a few) than they did 5 years ago.

The Social Security retirement age thing seems like such a scam to me. I have been paying into it my whole life but the gov keeps changing the rules to prevent me from getting much out of it.

I was born in 1957. Which means my "full retirement" age, i.e. the age the government grudgingly admits its ok for me to retire, is 66.5

When comparing that against the average lifespan, a surprising piece of data emerges. Remember that the "current" lifespan cannot be used, since that assumes the person is born today. If you go back to the average lifespan for an average white male born in 1957 (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_14.pdf page 34) you will see the average life expectancy for me is 67.2

Thus the government wants (on average) for me to only live (and to have to pay for me) for only 8 months of Social Security after I retire.

It's a game and how much of a payout you get from Social Security depends on how well you play it. If you treat your body badly, you die early. If you die early you don't get any money. If you eat wisely, exercise and keep your stress level under control, you can make out like a bandit. It is all about choices.

"It's a game and how much of a payout you get from Social Security depends on how well you play it."

The game is not necessarily rigged in favor of those who take care of themselves. Much of Social Security pays out to people who are disabled, many of whom are young, and some of those who treat their body badly often collect much more easily than those who take care of themselves and through bad luck, get hurt or sick. For example, a guy who gets drunk and hits himself in the head resulting in damage is much more likely to get SSI than a professional who has a serious stroke.

And as much as you would like to believe it, eating and living healthily do not necessarily translate into living longer-- as one gets older, odds such as cancer and heart disease catch up to you, often through no fault of your own.

As to the thread jack, I notice they never fail to wrench the conversation over to that narrow gauge, the one dug out between canyons through persistent weathering. It made me imagine those researchers, the ones that have their conclusions and then produce them rendering risible the purpose studies, producing study after study, hammering away persistently until they got the desired publishable conclusion. Demonstrating the opposite of what they're trying so desperately to prove. Have you framed it? They're entirely wrong, speaking through personal experience, liberals are quite teh thick headed.

It reminds me of the one about conservatives having more of a bumper sticker mentality and yet it only liberals I personally know that sport stickers that provoke conflict with imagined enemies. As a tour of my building's garage shows.

Your quoted studies are bullshit william. The left has been trying to pathologize political differences since the Russian Revolution, locking up dissidents as "mentally defective" for opposing their tyranny. Those studies are more of the same. You're a dictators wet-dream and useful idiot if you believe that tripe, william.

I'm a conservative and I want lots of change in our society and government. I just don't have the arrogance and immaturity to think that everything should go my way.

The only ambiguity I am intolerant of is the stupid ambiguity practiced by leftists who equated the USA with the USSR during the Cold War and who equate wars of liberation in the Middle East with Imperialism and who say that Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein. Or the idiocy that asserts that gender is a societal construct, but homosexuality is genetically innate and unchangeable.

And as far as Iraq goes, my Iraqi friends who I helped liberate consider guys like you to be supporters of Saddams Hussein and a terrorist sympathiser because you are against the war that freed them.

You didn't want THAT change william. Are you mentally defective? Is freeing a whole nation vs leaving it in the hands of a genocidal monster just too ambiguous for you?

I understand what you are saying,but I have to live with myself, I won't suggest people hit themselves in the head or join a street gang to get some sort of gunshot wound that will render a medical condition in order to get a lifetime of disability payments that are way to low to allow for any type of quality of life. Of course, you are free to go down that route as well, if you wish.

Too bad your GOP is going in the shitter... well deserved due to your incompetent chimp leader. Just imagine for one moment where the GOP could have been under competent leadership... if things had been different? Imagine where the GOP would be right now under President Colin Powell. A president/diplomat who gained the respect that America now has lost. Instead of incompetently charging into Iraq in '03, waited until Afghanistan was secure, bin Laden was killed, and then... in '05 put together a coalition that included Saudis, Iran (yes, they hated Saddam), Turkey and others went into Iraq, got Saddam and established a coalition governed republic where neighboring countries took responsibility and helped foot the bill like in '91's Desert Storm. Imagine where the GOP could be right now under competent leadership. Imagine where America would be right now if we weren't spending $333 million a DAY, everyday in Iraq. Where our leaders depend on keeping Americans afraid to uphold their grip on power.

BUT no. You'll continue to kiss Bush's ass and say he never lied, never did anything wrong as the GOP sinks further into oblivion.

My main objection to the study that William quoted, is that it had nothing to do with Helen's article. It like this William guy was looking for some exuse to rail against conservative/libretarians/whatever and was dying to quote the article regardless of its irrelevence to what was being discussed on the blog.

If William really wants to make a difference, his has to convice people of his point of view and the bottom line is this: people will never, never, ever listen to an alternative point of view if the person presenting the person presenting the view obviously holds them in comtempt. When I comment of DailyKos (often to present a contrary viewpoint), I am alway very respectfull. I address one specific issue at time and never condemn the entire liberal establishment in one stroke. No one would listen to me or take me seriously in the least if I went off in an anti-liberal tirad on a liberal website. All I would do is give them the impression that conservatives are jerks.

The question for William (and all angry, bullish commentors looking for fight) do you want to change people's minds or do you simply want to widen the ideological gulf that separates this country. The article you quoted implied that a large percentage of commentors were mentally inferior to liberals. You did this without even quoting any p-values from the article. What did you expect to accomplish by this. What did this article have to do with Helen's article about taxes (mostly).

Your thinking that Iran is any sort of nation we would want to ally with or allow to have influence in the Middle East shows enormous naivete william. You aren't a very serious person. You are a turd thrower, calling conservative mental defectives like your Communist forbearers. You qote one suspect study and then try to smear anyone who qusetions it as a "swiftboater" which tells me all I need to know about the koolaid you have bought stock in.

Your thinking that Iran is any sort of nation we would want to ally with or allow to have influence in the Middle East shows enormous naivete william

If Ronald Reagan thought that way about the Soviets.... however he did arm a guy named Saddam with 60 Huey Helicopters and defense technology that included bio and chemical weapons...he used those very choppers to gas the Iranians and Kurds...but I guess that was OK. He was a republican.

You have an obsessive need to validate yourself by denigrating others. I'm no psychologist and even I can see it in you. Your actual choice of sides is irrelevant; what matters to you is taking any side at all so that you can express contempt for the other. You need help.

It is common knowledge we gave weapons (guns and helocoptors) to Sadam in the 80's to prevent the Iranians from taking over.

What I doubt is that we sold chemical and biological weapons to Sadam. I have never heard this in any report or article I have ever read.

It there real, concrete evidence that this happened? If there was, I can't believe liberal media networks like MSMBC didn't have a hey day with it back when they first turned against the war in 2004. I smell a conspiracy theory William. Prove me wrong.

With regard to the level of taxation that will lead you to not being free, I think it depends on your income. With an increase in our incomes, we can live with less 'fairness.' OTOH, man 'does not live by bread alone' as Jesus says in response to the first temptation, supposedly given to him on starting his public life, 'to turns stones into bread' which, in a sense, is the first temptation of Messiahs, such as Chavez in Venezuela, who wants to abrogate prices based on supply and demand to satisfy the 'needs' of the poor (and connected). 'But by following the word of God' which, in part, would be not to use the government to steal. Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Lent and so the Vatican, in deciding on the liturgy, thought the passage appropriate. I don't know if that makes the comment more appropriate.

For starters, anyone who honestly thinks the linked study proves anything is learning-impaired. Even leaving aside the difficulty of objectively defining "liberal" and "conservative," trying to draw conclusions at a high level of abstraction with respect to political orientation in this case (reaction to the letter M vs. the letter W) is ludicrous. One may as well ask "boxers or briefs," "diamonds or pearls," or "cats or dogs?"

William repeatedly demonstrates a basic inability to perform basic logic, or even math. For example, his (frequently cited) statistic that we spend "$333 million a day in Iraq" might sound horrible. But, if you do the math ($333 million x 365) you get $121.545 billion a year. To put this in perspective, the American GDP is ~$13 trillion, of which $122 billion is ~0.94%, or roughly nine-tenths of one percent of our annual production. To put it another way, $122 billion is is roughly six percent of our current annual Federal budget.

Now. If william wants to wet his pants over an expenditure equivalent to less than one one-hundredth of our annual income, or one-twentieth of our annual Federal expenditure, that's his lookout. It certainly underlines his complete lack of any sense of perspective on the matter. One would think that we could easily manage to cut 5% off the budget to compensate for the war. I personally suggest eliminating the entire Department of Education and all farm subsidies for a start. ;)

In other words he is either waving the Red Herring, or he's just simple. Your call.

But then, one should not expect much from someone who -when confronted with actual reason and argument, swiftly (heh) resort to ad hominem insults. He has also obviously never grasped the basic fact that the great majority of Swift Boat claims are true.

I'm not going to even try and comment on his nearly incoherent rant about how we should have enlisted the help of Iran to invade Iraq. Someone please mail the poor boy a couple history books...

Finally, we have his pathetic attempt to smear Reagan with the old "we armed Saddam" mantra.

willy, willy, willy... Get thee to a library. The US may have, in fact, supplied Iraq with some light helicopters (not "heliocopters"). You might want compare that number to the several hundred military choppers the bugger got from the Soviet Union. In fact, I'd like to see a photo of an American chopper in Iraqi colors at all.

As for that laughably ancient claim that we "gave" Saddam bio or chem weapons... Buy a vowel, and get a clue.

Let me break it down for you, just in case you never opened an atlas. In the center of Iraq, running from northwest to southeast, we have a twin river system known as the Tigris and Euphrates. You might have heard of those rivers before; something about the "Fertile Crescent," and the birthplace of civilization.

Now, what that means is that Iraq has a lot of farmland. Flat farmland, with more than a few marshes and wetlands. In fact, much of the Iran-Iraq war was fought in such terrain.

One of the interesting things about marsh and/or wetlands is the remarkable fecundity of mosquitoes. Now, I don't know if you've notices, but where there's mosquitoes, there's malaria, and other diseases.

What the United States did was provide Iraq with insecticide production capability. Basically, we helped them build a bug-killer plant. Alas, the ability to produce RAID! includes the later ability to produce various nasty things, in the same way the ability to perform surgery includes detailed knowledge on cutting people open with knives.

In short, the United States never provided Saddam Hussein with any military vehicles, munitions, nor weapons, despite what your feebly-pulsing imitation of a brain tells you.

Dear people. I guess I'm the default educator here. Is there something wrong with your Google? I don't throw out facts that I can't document.

In "The Riegle Report" 1994

Entitled:

U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Gulf War

The report found that during the Reagan Administration a load of bio and chemical toxins were shipped to Iraq, approved and licensed by the US Gov't. From the report:

"UN inspectors had identified many United States manufactured items that had been exported from the United States to Iraq under licenses issued by the Department of Commerce, and [established] that these items were used to further Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons development and its missile delivery system development programs .... the executive branch of our government approved 771 different export licenses for sale of dual use technology to Iraq ."

Included in the approved sales are the following biological materials:

Many of these shipments from US companies were shipped directly to the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission.----These bio toxin shipments occured between 1985 and 89. You can find complete documentation on the shipments HERE in the report (bottom).----In addition to US corporations, here is a complete list of US Government Agencies that supplied IRAQ with WMD during the Reagan Administration:

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION(Atlanta, Georgia)

1985 — Three shipments of West Nile virus, two shipments of dengue-fever virus, one shipment of Yersinia pestis (non-virulent plague bacteria), one shipment of Bhania virus, one shipment of Hazara virus, one shipment of Kemerovo virus, one shipment of Langat virus, one shipment of Sandfly Fever/Naples virus, one shipment of Sandfly Fever/Sicilian virus, one shipment of Sindbis virus, one shipment of Tahyna virus, one shipment of Thogoto virus, five plague-infected mouse-tissue smears and a variety of antigens and antibodies.

1985 — Eight vials of antigens (substances that stimulate the production of antibodies) as well as antibodies for ricketts and typhus

1989 — A variety of enterococcus bacteria and one shipment of streptococcus bacteria

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY(Langley, Virginia)

1982 — President Ronald Reagan signed a National Security Council directive ordering the agency to provide Iraq with intelligence-information advice and hardware. The order was enthusiastically carried out by then-CIA Director William Casey (see Bechtel), who supported the sale of cluster bombs to Iraq. CIA also assisted in the sale of non-U.S. weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq.

1984 — Agency secretly provided Iraq with instructions on how to calibrate its mustard-gas attacks on Iranian troops.

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE(Washington, D.C.)

1983 to 1990 — Extended billions of dollars worth of loan guarantees to Iraq through the Agriculture Department’s Commodity Credit Corporation. Iraq used some of these funds to buy material, equipment and technology for its chemical-weapons and ballistic-missile programs.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE(Washington, D.C.)

1985 to 1990 — Approved $1.5 billion worth of export licenses for shipments of goods with both military and civilian applications to Iraq. According to an Inspector General’s report, Commerce officials later tampered with export records to disguise shipments of equipment and technology used by the Iraqi military. Five records alterations pertained to the proposed shipment of more than $1 billion in trucks originally described as "designed for military use."

1983 — Private citizen Donald Rumsfeld (currently the secretary of defense) was dispatched to Iraq as the personal envoy of President Reagan. Met with Saddam Hussein and pledged support for regime. Rumsfeld’s trip occurred as U.S. was receiving reports of chemical-weapons use by Iraq. Rumsfeld also carried with him a secret offer of help to Iraq from then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

During both the Reagan administration and the first Bush administration (prior to the invasion of Kuwait), the department supported export licenses transferring weapons technology and weapons materials to Iraq.

1983 — Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz successfully lobbied Commerce Department to approve sale of helicopters to Iraq. State Department begins receiving reports of chemical-weapons use by Iraqi military.

1986 — Reagan sent secret message to Saddam Hussein, advising him to step up his air war on Iran. Message delivered to Hussein through Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by Vice President George Bush.

1988 — At the U.N., Schultz downplayed Iraq’s use of chemical weapons on Kurds.

1989 — Department supplied visas for three Iraqi nuclear scientists to attend an international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon. This conference discussed nuclear-weapons technology and flyer-plate technology used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves.

1989 — Secretary of State James Baker received memo informing him that Iraq was aggressively developing chemical-, biological- and new missile-weapons programs.

1990 — Bush administration approved $4.8 million in sales of advanced technology to Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. MIMI was responsible for Iraq’s nuclear-, missile and chemical-weapons program.

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL(Washington, D.C.)

1983 to 1989 — During this period, the NSC, usually with the State Department, successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to approve sales to Iraq of military-related items and items with dual military and civilian use, such as heavy trucks, to Iraq.

1983 — Successfully lobbied the Commerce Department to approve the sale of 10 "civilian" Bell helicopters to Iraq in 1983. The helicopters were eventually modified and used in 1988 to spray poison gas on Iranians and possibly the Kurds.

1989 — President George Bush signed NSC Directive 26, which established closer ties to Baghdad and provided $1 billion in agricultural loans.

U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS LABORATORIES:

LAWRENCE LIVERMORE (University of California, Livermore, California)

LOS ALAMOS (University of California, Los Alamos, California)

SANDIA (Sandia National Laboratories are government-owned but operated under contract by Lockheed Martin, which is based in Fort Worth, Texas)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (Washington, D.C.)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (Washington, D.C.)

1989, California — These three labs in conjunction with the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense organized a quadrennial international detonation conference in Portland, Oregon. There, representatives from these nuclear labs presented information on nuclear-weapons-detonation technology and flyer-plate technology used to control the force and shape of implosive shock waves. Three Iraqi nuclear scientists attended this conference from the Al Qaqaa State Establishment. Al Qaqaa supplied bomb parts for Iraq’s nuclear-weapons testing. ------------

As for that laughably ancient claim that we "gave" Saddam bio or chem weapons... Buy a vowel, and get a clue.

Well, what do you think Casey? Who doesn't appear to have a clue or a firm grip on reality here? Casey, fen, Chrislee ... you all really exposed your ignorance on this subject. You've just been slamdunked. Sorry to burst your Reagan bubble. He gave bio and chemical weapons and WMD technology to a ruthless ego-maniac dictator - Saddam. He MADE Saddam a threat. FACT.

This is not about Saddam, it's about Iraq, Ronald Reagan, history, reality, and the sadly misinformed. I was called a liar. It's good to have the truth on one's side in a sea of ignorant authoritarian wingnuttery.

BTW- For your reference,The list of companies and the specific military support and/or WMD they supplied to Saddam under license and approval of the Reagan and Bush Admins are found here (a-m) and here (n-z)

William, do you even understand what your laundry list is? When the US re-opened relations with Iraq, it included trade from American A&M univeristies to Iraq universities. Not going to waste bandwidth, so here's a short rebuttal:

Excuse me, you forgot to explain to us these items that the Reagan and Bush Administrations licenced these companies to sell to Iraq:

anthrax (AMERICAN TYPE CULTURE COLLECTION), mustard gas (ALCOLAC INTERNATIONAL), sarin gas (AL HADDAD ENTERPRISES, INC.), west Nile virus (CDC), capacitors capable of powering a firing set for a nuclear weapon (AXEL ELECTRONICS), $9 million worth of heavy equipment used in construction projects involving Iraq’s nuclear and Condor II ballistic-missile programs (CATERPILLAR), high-performance furnaces, valued at $11 million, for making missile parts and melting zirconium (CONSARC), fluorinated Krytox vacuum-pump oil used in the Iraqi centrifuge program (which produced materials for the nuclear-weapons program - DUPONT), super-precision turning lathe found by U.N. inspectors at Al Atheer, Iraq’s nuclear-weapons design-and-research center (Hardinge, Inc), 60 civilian helicopters, eventually modified for military use - used in gas attacks on Iran and Kurds (HUGHES HELICOPTER), electron-beam welder, valued at $880,000 used to assemble centrifuges for enriching uranium and for the repair of military jet engines and rocket cases (LEYBOLD VACUUM SYSTEMS), welding machines which were used to build Iraqi missile factories (LINCOLN ELECTRIC CO., radio-spectrum analyzers, computers for inventory, quality control, lab analysis and engineering calculations to Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization). The equipment was used to make thiodiglycol, a chemical used in the manufacture of mustard gas (LUMMUS CREST, INC.), $957,000 worth of compasses, gyroscopes and accelerometers to the Iraqi Air Force(MBB HELICOPTER CORP.) ....

Now, I'm going down the list of companies... I'm only to "M" ... would you like to explain these Fen, before I continue with 30 more examples? How are you going to rationalize all of these? We know about this equipment & materials because confiscation of these items come directly from UN weapon inspectors reports!! (you know... the guys that Bush removed from Iraq so he could invade?)

If I am not mistaken, weren't those the Iran - Iraq war years? Without googling until blue in the face, I believe they were. Out of the two nations, at that time, I believe we would have preferred Iraq win that confrontation. If it were to happen again, I believe we as a nation would still back Iraq. Iran is happy to "enter" Iraq and "help out".

Saddam changed a lot of things. Seems no one wants to remember the U.N. involvement that led to all of this. The U.N.(silently) wants the U.S. to be the world's police force, then bad mouth us in the media for doing so. It's wonderful to be able to have your half in the middle.

In WWII the list of stuff we gave to England (lend - lease) before we entered the war ourselves was certainly more impressive. In the teens and twenties into the early thirties there were numerous German companies with plants in the U.S. (like today). They were evacuated when Germany declared war on us after Pearl Harbor. There were also lots of Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. in the thirties. They marched up and down main streets dressed in Nazi uniforms. One forgets we were also allies with Russia in WWII. That also deteriorated quickly after the crisis was finally over. Lots of unexpected consequences in this world. The History Channel is a wonderful thing.

These items were confiscated during the Clinton years. The 1998 operation Desert Fox also accomplished WMD removal where it was reported by Sec of Defense Cohen and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs Sheldon that the action had "seriously degraded Saddams WMD."

Dems like Hillary, Gore, others are often quoted out of context to "prove" they believed Saddam's WMD justified war. This is bogus. Listen to what else they said.

We had time to do it right. Time to put together a coalition like in '91, time to get Iraq's neighbors to take responsibility and support. Saddam was hemmed in by no fly zones, satellite surveilence, weapons inspectors... we had time to do it right but no, we couldn't do it Gen Powells' way, or Gen Shinseki's way... we had to do it the "chimp cowboy way." Going to war 'with what we had"... as Rummy said. As a result, our guys didn't have the armor to proect themselves from IEDs and they paid the price with blown off limbs and brain injuries.

Now 5 yrs later America is spending $333 million a day and it has weaken our military to the point where we are not prepared for an attack on our homeland.

(AP) The U.S. military isn’t ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don’t have the equipment or training they need for the job.

Thanks Dumbya... quite a legacy you've left for our military. Thousands dead, maimed, brain damaged... and the Walter Reed scandal. Bush vetoed a military pay hike reducing their raise. What do ya think Sgt Ted? Proud of the legacy of your 'chimp in chief'? More people were killed in Iraq after the US lost control in 5 years than in 15 yrs under Saddam. Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein according to Ayad Allawi.

Oh and BR549, I am intimately familiar with the Bush family history of the WWII war profiteering and how Prescott Bush, GW's grandfather aided Hitler's rise to power and how his company Brown Brothers Harriman profitted directly from Nazi death camps.

Because of this, two Holocaust survivors Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85 sued the Bush family for a total of $40 billion in compensation claiming that the Bush family materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during WWII.

According to former US Justice Dept. Nazi War Crimes prosecutor John Loftus -who is today the director of the Florida Holocaust Museum- "The Bush family fortune came from the Third Reich,"-Sarasota Herald-Tribune 11/11/2000

There were people who worked for FDR had pictures of Mussolini in their offices. Lots of otherwise decent people thought Hitler and Mussolini had great ideas back in the 30's. Its where Progressives got their ideas. You need to read some history books written by people other than Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn. Communist revisionism doesn't make your claims truth.

And as far as swfitboating goes, seeing as the SBVT merely told the truth about Kerry, I wear that as a badge of honor.

And Joseph Kennedy was an anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer who "supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement..." (Appeasement. Sounds familar) Henry Ford made money off of Stalin and the Nazis. Are you responsible for the sins of your grandfather.?

If anyone ever showed "‘persistence’ in a ‘habitual response pattern,’" it's you. You sound like a broken record of 90% of the lefties out there. "Bush.....(whatever obscure bull you can dig up.)"

Actually, if one were to judge mental health by believing in fraudulent or discredited ideas, the left would qualify for involuntary commitment based on their inablility to acknowledge the failures of collectivism in all its forms as a Governing system.

Mark: Thus the government wants (on average) for me to only live (and to have to pay for me) for only 8 months of Social Security after I retire.

I don't know much about the history of SSA or if it was intended to expire, but I think you are exactly right.

William: Did you read the end of the article? Carafano and Lewis believe that a U.S. troop pullout would embolden Islamic jihadists, but that they're much more likely to stay closer to home and spread violence to neighboring countries with poor records of combating terrorism, such as Somalia, Morocco, Algeria and perhaps Egypt, than they are to try to penetrate America. Increased terrorism in those places would tax the United States, which would have to deal with the economic costs, global refugees and health crises that combat in those countries could produce. "The danger is not that they'll follow us home," Carafano said. "The problems will come to our doorstep, not the terrorists." Lewis of CSIS believes that a U.S. pullout could prompt some foreign fighters in Iraq to go home, head to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces there or move to Europe, where Muslim anger is high and there are more Muslim communities to blend into. "The United States is a distant (fourth)," he said.

William, did you know that anti-war activist George Soros paid for the study that claimed a high number of Iraqi deaths? And the media ate it right up.

Because of this, two Holocaust survivors Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85 sued the Bush family for a total of $40 billion in compensation claiming that the Bush family materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during WWII.

Why did they wait until 62 years after the war had ended? Our current President wasn't even born until 1946. Were they upset that the courts didn't allow Gore to steal the election?

Thanks to people like you, the term 'swiftboating' will be forever synonymous with lies and smear... as it should be.

Thanks for posting to a link provided by Hillary's spin machine. I'm sure it is very reliable.